This is the product of a lifetime in opposing nuclear power policy not only in South Africa, but also on the African Continent, and further afield. The author began his unofficial and largely unpaid career in opposing nuclear power as General Secretary of Koeberg Alert in the 1980s.

Activists have hailed the dismissal of an application to rezone prime agricultural land in the Philippi Horticultural Area (PHA) as a victory, and a punch in the gut to developers and the City, which they say has used bullying tactics to push the development through.

“The currently prevailing dominant culture within the ranks of officialdom at the municipality of Cape Town, where senior planning and other officials have been instructed by the mayor to simply say ‘yes’ to development applications, is deeply undermining the exercise of professional responsibility, development control and local government growth-management of the built environment. This culture is patently tending to result in professional officials becoming compromised ethically and not being able to do their jobs effectively,” Todeschini wrote.

It was claimed at the meeting that the mayor had given an instruction to city officials that they were not to raise objections to development applications submitted to the city. De Lille dismissed this claim: “This is a lie. Bring the evidence.”

Under-age drinking is an increasing problem, while social workers from the Western Cape Social Development Department are not proactively engaging problem households. Underage drinking is more prevalent during the holidays, which leads to impaired brain development.

Every day, the famous Camps Bay region in Cape Town, South Africa, is discharging million of litres of untreated waste-water into our marine reserve. This is creating some serious and growing problems, for the vulnerable sea-life, for us water-users and soon for beach-goers too.

Never before has the need for civil society vigilance been greater than in this interesting times we live in. We have a constitutional democracy. But what does it mean when the democratic space in local government is fast shrinking and it appears that there has been “state capture” at our local government level.

Destroying our natural environment and replacing it with concrete jungles, in my estimation at least, can in no way be called progressive development. The cosy relationship between our local government structures and the Western Cape Developers Forum, where red carpet treatment ensures the big developers easy passage to encroach on the urban edge, where zoning rules are amended to allow more units for profit and where the seemingly insatiable mammonic greed is fed.

I am concerned that the City wants to cover up its wastage, and protect themselves from the blame of misspending. It’s going to be difficult to make the stadium commercially viable, and at the end of the day, the ratepayers will still foot the bill no matter how you look at it.

Bam said civic organisations were fair in their criticism of the city’s public participation process. “There’s nothing in the participation process that the voice of the community is determinative. Until such time, the city and the government will continue to walk over people.”

There have been numerous complaints in the media concerning the illegal building of cell masts in Cape Town. In some instances it has been reported that masts were built without required plans and instances of masts having been built before the plans had been submitted for approval were also reported.